Colophon

"Explicit speculum vite xpi quod John morton", fol. 121v.

Secundo Folio

"Of þe passion of ouur Lord Ihesu crist & fyrst of his prayer".

Explicit

See Colophon.

Languages of the MS

This book contains a mixture of English and Latin texts.

Detailed Description of Contents

A bifolium from a Gradual is bound in at the front of the book.

1. Mirror of the Blessed Life, fols 1-121v.

2. William Flete, English I text of the De Remediis contra Temptationes, (Jolliffe, K.8 (a); IPMEP 230), fols 122r-131r; this version is most closely related to that in BL MS Harley 2409, which is also translated from the A iv version of the Latin text; the last three chapters of the text are drawn directly from chapter 6 Stimulus Amoris (see Hackett et al., pp. 217-9) and are treated separately as part of this description.

3. 'Cleanness of Soul', an extract from the English translation of St. Catherine's Dialogo (ed.in Horstmann, YW, i, p. 108) begins, "A sely saule askid of god ouur stedfast lord clennes of saule And god apered to hir & sayd : If þu will haue þt clennes þt þu askys : ye be houes be oned to me parfitely þat am sufferan clennes", ends, "þe third es if þu deme any gate3 my seruandis werke3 deme no3t eftir þine Awne dome bot eftir my dome"; Jolliffe I. 7 (c); fol. 131r. A version of this text also survives with another remedy against spiritual temptations in BL MS Royal 18. A. X. Given John Morton's demonstrable links with the house of Austin friars in York, it is tempting to consider that such texts may have been sourced through this connection.

Estimated Date of Production

1431- c. 1440; the historical text provides a terminus pro quem, as it records the coronation of Henry VI. This text is usually dated c. 1431-1448; if this text was penned by John Morton (d. 1434), son of Roger Morton of Bawtry (in the Doncaster area, and thus near to the dialectal reference point in LALME) then we might locate the making of the book to 1431-4.

Writing Support

Mixed paper and parchment (parchment bifolia in outer and inner position in the gatherings).

Foliation

ii + 150 fols

Dimensions of Page and Writing Space

Leaf Size: 210 x 150 mm (approx.)

Writing Space: 160 x 100 mm (approx.) prose items only.

Collation

124, 2-522 -1, (there is a stub of a trimmed leaf between fols 91 and 92, no loss of text) [fols 25-105]; 628 [fols 106-33]; 714 -1? (a stub, with signs of being ruled, occurs between fol. 146 and fol. 147) [fols 134-147].

The collation is offered here tentatively, particularly in respect of the last two gatherings.

Layout

1 column throughout, Mirror generally has around 34 lines, subsequent prose items 30-32, but there is variation throughout the volume; frames are ruled (in pen?) throughout, but no lines; no signs of pricking, although the book has been trimmed.

Rubrication/ Ordinatio

Initials: 2-line initials, described by Kathleen Scott as "divergent", having "red letters with brown flourishing" (Scott, 'The Illustration and Decoration', p. 71), and are drawn rather amateurishly, although with imaginative, enthusiastic flourishing. Item 2 begins with a 4-line intitial.

Titles, Headings, Rubrics: Chapter headings, the words of biblical characters, and Latin in the text (the phrases that are generally rubricated in the Mirror and italicized in Sargent's edition) are penned in a large formal script, sometimes underlined, or contained in a scroll device; the scale of the larger script varies in size somewhat; paraph breaks supplied by way of a squat vertical pillar, with horizontal arms stretching a little over the subsequent text and for a few words further beneath.

Other: Gatherings are generally marked at the front of the quire with a roman numeral (quire II is marked at the end of the first gathering).

Illustration

-

Number of Scribal Hands

1-2?

Item 12 is perhaps not penned by the main scribe, as it is penned in a notably thinner duct than other items, and with different graphs for some letters, esp. 'g'; however, a number of similarities between the hands, including the unusual predominance of a colon in punctuation means that the hand may be the same, or at least, bear some relationship to that of the main scribe.

Zachary Stone, who has been working on the MS, is convinced that all items are by the main scribe, noting s correspondence in ink and ruling in the latter part of the book.

Style of Hands

Cursive clerkly Anglicana with some Secretary influence; not unlike the kind of script penned by Robert Thornton (see Lincoln Cathedral MS 91); the graph for þ is the same as for y, although y is sometimes dotted.

Estimated Date of Hands

2nd quarter C15.

Scribal Annotation

There are a number of annotations that accord with the standard form in the Mirror, but comparatively few by normal standards. Some of the phrases normally occurring in the margins have been drawn into the body of the text; eg. "haec dies quam fecit dominus & c." (Sargent, p. 216), occurs before the Englishing of the Psalm in the text (see also Annotation , 'nota bene' on fol. 118v). The notae recorded below in the Annotation field may well have been applied by the scribe, but probably not at the same time that the more orthodox notae that correlate with standard versions of the Mirror were penned. As such, they may evidence reading activity in the household of John and Juliana Morton, as opposed to side notes copied from an exemplar.

Fol. 119v: The feasting of the orders of angels following Christ's Ascension (218:4-11)

Other Annotation in the Mirror:

Fol. 85: a tag has been made to mark this folio by the ingenious means of a thin slip of parchment being trimmed from the lower corner of the leaf, folded, and hooked through a small vertical slit. The tag, positioned in the lower corner of the folio (where the trimmed piece of parchment was harvested) is precisely aligned with Christ's words as he offers his body and blood to the disciples at the Last Supper (149:17-21)

Graffitti

Fol. 144r: "þra þen wrot bonaventur"; although in a less formal hand than that of the scribe, it may be that this is also penned by John Morton; C15.

Fol. 149v: "uno duo tres", and taken up in new clumsier hand, "quartu3 quinque sex", C15-C16.

Names recorded, signatures, ex libris marks

Other than the colophon, Morton is mentioned in letter of confraternity from the prior provincial of the Austin friars in York dated to 1438, naming John and his wife Juliana, bound in at the end of the book (fols 148-9). A C16-17 reader has apparently misconstrued Morton's colophon, and attributed Love's translation to him in a header on fol. 1r: "Speculum vitae Christi translated out off Bonaventure by Jh. Merton [sic] vide Infra fol. 121". For mention of another, possibly related John Morton, who died in York in 1431, see Meale, p. 26.

Another letter of confraternity, this time from the Carmelite convent in Scarborough by William the prior, dated Nov. 9, 1396 to Agnes Wyndhyll and her son John, and Robert (relationship uncertain?). A 'John Wyndhyll' occurs in the Calendar of Papal Letters as rector of Arnecliff in the diocese of York, at least between 1396-1415 (Papal Letters VI, p. 483 and V, p. 53; see also V, p. 134) A 'John Wyndhill' is also granted custody of the hospital of 'Newebyggyng' in Northumberland in March 1391 (Calendar of Patent Rolls: Ric. II, vol. IV, p. 398).

References and Other Resources

F. N. M. Diekstra, "A good remedie a3ens spirituel temptacions: A conflated Middle English version of William Flete's De Remediis contra Temptationes and Pseudo-Hugh of St Victor's De Pusillanimitate in London BL MS Royal 18.A.X", English Studies vol. 76. 4, (1995), pp. 307-354.

William Flete, 'Remedies against Temptations: The Third English Version of William Flete', ed. Eric Colledge and Noel Chadwick, Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pieta, vol. 5 (Rome, 1968), pp. 201-240.

'Contra Temptationes by William Flete', Life of the Spirit, V (1950-51), 20-26, 120-25;

Carol Meale, "'Oft siþis with grete deuotion I þought what I mi3t do pleysyng to god': The Early Ownership and Readership of Love's Mirrour, with Special Reference to its Female Audience", Nicholas Love at Waseda (D.S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 19-46. Michael Benedict Hackett, Edmund Colledge and Noel Chadwick, 'William Flete's "De Remediis contra temptationes" in its Latin and English Recensions. The Growth of a Text' Medieval Studies, vol. 26 (1964), 210-230. Linne R. Mooney, ‘Lydgate’s Kings of England and Another Verse Chronicle of the Kings’, Viator, 20 (1989), 255–89.E. A. Jones, 'A Source for the Anonymous "Kings of England"' Notes and Queries, 56.2 (2009), 194-197.

Sargent Groupings

γ1

Sargent Pages

Intro. 44, 67, 88, 97, 132, 135-6.

Sargent Number

Bo1

Credits

Please note: Descriptions of Mirror MSS are indebted to: Nicholas Love, The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ: A Full Critical Edition, ed. by Michael G. Sargent (Exeter: University of Exeter Press,